My Mind Patch: Steamed Thai Tea Cake

Thursday 22 March 2018

Steamed Thai Tea Cake

I have tried quite a number of steamed cakes using different flavours. While thinking of what flavour to be used for my next steamed cake, I saw a few postings of the MacDonald Thai Tea soft ice cream 🍦over the social media. That's it - Thai Tea would be my next steamed cake flavour 😍

Thai Tea is not a strong flavour ingredient except its intense colour. So the cake only carried a very mild Thai Tea aroma. To strengthen the aroma, I just spread some Thai Tea flavour ermine cream in between the cake layers - not very strong but really improved the flavour. The ermine cream uses tea roux to replace part of the whipped cream to make it lighter in terms of fat content. Therefore, overall this can be considered as a light dessert 🍰

Yield: one 13cm cake
Pan size: 14x5 cm round cake
I bought this small cake pan from Daiso

Thai Tea Brew

Ingredients
1 bag Thai Tea teabag, about 4g*
90g hot water

* I bought the Thai tea bag from Fairprice supermarkets.

Directions
1. Steep Thai tea bag in hot water for about 3 to 5 minutes.

2. Collect 50g of the Thai Tea for the cake batter, and 25g for the ermine cream.

Thai Tea Ermine Cream

Ingredients
25g Thai Tea
5g top/cake flour

50g whipping cream
10g icing sugar

Directions
1. Collect 25g of thai tea from above and mix with 5g of top or cake flour in a heat resistant cup.

2. Heat at low temperature and stir constantly to prevent burning at the bottom. Remove from heat when the mixture thickens into tea roux.

3. Wait for the tea roux to cool down completely, seal with food wrap, and refrigerate till needed.

4. Keep a metal mixing bowl and the balloon whisk in the freezer for about 30 minutes before use.

5. Pour the whipping cream into the cold mixing bowl. Put an ice pad below the cold mixing bowl if you have one. You can freeze one damp kitchen towel and use it as ice pad.

6. Whip up the whipping cream till soft peak and add in the icing sugar.

Continue to whip till reaching stiff peak.

7. Pour in the cold tea roux and mix well using a spatula.

8. Refrigerate the Thai Tea Ermine cream till needed.

Thai Tea Cake

Ingredients
50g Thai Tea
10g condensed milk
10g rice bran oil/mild flavour vegetable oil

2 egg whites
pinch of salt
50g fine sugar
2 egg yolks

70g top/cake flour

Directions
1. Line a 14cm round cake pan with parchment paper. Set aside.

2. Collect 50g of Thai tea from the brew, and mix with condensed milk and rice bran oil in a cup. Set aside.

3. In a clean, dry and oil-free mixing bowl, beat egg white till frothy using an electric hand mixer. Add in a pinch of salt and beat for a few seconds.

Gradually add in the fine sugar, in 3 additions, continue to beat

till reaching firm peak stage. Reduce the mixer speed to low at the final 1 to 2 minutes.

Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time,

till reaching the ribbon stage. The dripped beaten egg will stay on the surface for at least 1 minute.

4. Mix in the top flour and tea-milk mixture from Step 2 following the sequence of
1/3 Flour ⏩ 1/2 tea-milk ⏩ 1/3 flour ⏩ 1/2 tea-milk ⏩ 1/3 flour

Mix in 1/3 of the sieved top flour using the whisks manually.

Followed by 1/2 of the tea-milk mixture. And continue the rest.

Finally, use a spatula to give the batter a thorough mix ensuring no flour or liquid settle at the bottom.

5. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.

Bang against the work top to level the batter and get rid of trapped air bubbles.

6. Pour about 100ml of water into an 18cm pot and place a shallow steamer stand in it. Bring to a light boil at medium-low heat.
I start to heat up the water when I start to prepare the batter, so I can start steaming the cake immediately.